Tefillah - 125 Past, Present, Future

The blessing ofולירושליםconcludes with בונה ירושלים, “Builder of Yerushalayim.”

We do not say that Hashem will eventually rebuild Yerushalayim – rather, we use the present tense, that Hashem is the “Builder” of Yerushalayim.

This reflects the statement of the Sages that “one who properly mourns Yerushalayim will merit its rebuilding“ – that a person can merit the rebuilding of Yerushalayim in the present, and not just in the future.

Understanding How To View Past, Present and Future

Let us reflect here into the concept of time – which is comprised of the past, the present, and the future. We will especially try to understand what the concept of the “present moment” is.

When a person is born, he is in katnus (immaturity). He first has no daas(understanding) at all, when he is a baby. He cannot think about past or future – all he thinks about is the present moment. A baby lives purely for the moment and never thinks about the past, or the future. But as a child begins to grow up, he thinks about the past and the future.

A baby thinks entirely about the present moment, for he is in a state of total katnus. As a person gains daas, he matures, and he has hopes for the future.

Hashem “was, is, and will be.” His existence fills all of the past, present, and future. This is the real “here and now” which our soul needs to connect to, the real havayah (reality), which is above all of the past, present and future - for Hashem’s existence is not limited to the plane of time, this it is not in the sphere of either the past, present or future.

Our soul can reflect about the past, when we access our memory about past events. Our imagination protects our memory, where we can continue to imagine the past through our memory. Another part of us can focus on the future, about what will be. Sometimes we use our seichel (intellect) to think about the future, but most of the time, thinking about the future means that we are imagining it (‘dimyon’).

Rav Dessler wrote that the future is entirely imagination, so to think about the future is imagination, not ‘thought’. If we reflect even a little, we realize where are thoughts are most of the day. Most of the day, we are either thinking about the past or the future, not on the present.

Of course, part of our thoughts is also thinking about the present. But most of our thoughts are usually thinking either about something that happened, or something that will be – and we are often not focused on the actual, present moment.

This is not the ideal situation. In the ideal situation, a person thinks constantly of the reality that is presently in front of him, and the deepest present moment is to think of Hashem’s Presence. Had Adam not sinned, he would have entered the eternal Shabbos – a world in which we enjoy the rays of the Shechinah – we would have lived the absolute reality. That is the ultimate “present moment”. Ever since the sin of Adam, we have lost focus on the reality, thus, we are initially not focused on the present.

When There Is Disconnection From The Present

In the outer layers of our soul, which most people are experiencing life, though, people are not found in the present moment, and they are either thinking about past or future. Only a baby is totally involved in the present, but this is the level of katnus. We need to return to the mature level of being involved entirely with the present.

When a person doesn’t try to develop his soul, he will mostly be experiencing either the past or the future, and he almost never focuses on the present. The only time he was involved with the present moment was when he was a baby, and when he gets older, he is either thinking about past or future, but never about the present.

But in the inner depths of our soul, we can be involved with the present. “Hashem and Yisrael are one”, thus, there is a deep point in our soul which is interconnected with Hashem, Who is the ultimate reality. So if we reveal the depth of our soul, we can be constantly involved with the present – to always think about Hashem’s existence. This will bring an overhaul to how one views life.

We will give a few examples of the concept, but let us be clear what the main point is: the understanding is not simply that we have the abilities to either think about past, present or future. Rather, there is an external part in our soul which either feels past or present, and the inner layer of our soul can feel them all at once.

When a person is a child, he is in katnus, and he only experiences the present, but this is the immature level of always experiencing the present. If a person merits to reveal the depth of his soul, he reveals the power to have d’veykus (attachment) with Hashem – which is the deep way to live the present.

Aspirations Vs. Being Content

We are a paradox. On one hand, a person needs to have aspirations; woe is to the person who has no aspirations to grow higher. But we also know that we must be “someiach b’chelko”, to be “happy with our lot”.

So on one hand, we need to be aspire for more growth. On the other hand, we need to be happy with ourselves. Isn’t this a contradiction? If we feel lacking in ourselves, we will have aspirations to grow more, but will we be missing someiach b’chelko. If we go the other way and we always feel happy with ourselves, we are someiach b’chlelko, but we will have no aspirations to grow higher!

The simple answer to this contradiction is that a person has to be someiach b’chelko with what he has now, but he should still have aspirations for the future.

This is true, but there is a deeper answer. One has to aspire for more growth, but after he does what he has to do, he should have emunah that since Hashem does all actions in Creation, everything Hashem does is perfect; thus, one can be “someiach b’chelko” after he performs, because ultimately, Hashem is behind all actions.

The External Dimension Is Past and Present, The Inner Dimension Is The Present

There is yet a deeper answer.

Our aspirations are about connecting ourselves to the future, while being happy with our lot is the power to experience the present. There is also a power to regret the past, and this is our soul’s power to think about the past.

Regret over the past, and aspirations to grow in the future, both exist on the outer layers of our soul, which views past, present and future. You regret the past, and you realize that no one is perfect, for even the greatest tzaddik also has sins. This is the power to be involved with the past. Then you have aspirations to grow in the future. So the aspirations are all built on the recognition of ‘past’ together with ‘future’.

But the power to be “someiach b’chelko” means to connect to the full meaning of the present moment – to be connected to Hashem, in the present moment. Therefore, you don’t just “aspire” for the future. You are presently connected to Hashem, Who is Perfect, so you have everything to be happy about. That is the depth of “someiach b’chelko”. (There are many definitions of the concept of “someiach b’chelko”; here we have explained the definition that is particularly relevant to the discussion).

Think about a child who enters first grade. He then enters second grade, and he thinks he has now reached perfection, and first grade looks like a joke. Then he enters third grade, and now second grade looks like kid stuff. Now he is fourth grade, and he looks back at third grade as being nothing. When he is in 7th and 8th grade, the fact that he’s wearing a hat and jacket makes him think that he has now reached the apex, and everything until now was nothing.

The older he gets, he goes through high school, Beis Midrash, he gets married, he has first child…and by all of these stages, he looks back at the previous period in his life as being nothing, in comparison to his present stage.

The nature of man is to keep comparing the past with the present level, and to think about how the next stage will make the current level seem meaningless. This all stems from the outer layers of our soul, which has a superficial perspective that views everything in terms of past, present, and future.

But when a person merits to leave superficiality and he reveals the depths of his soul, which is the power to be connected with Hashem, he essentially reveals a power to constantly be involved with the present.

This is a whole different viewpoint than a person who is still viewing life through the superficial perspective of comparing past or future with the present. It is a higher view on life.

Connecting Past and Future With The Present

Of course, we cannot only live for the moment. The outer layers on our soul, which dwell on past and future, will demand that we think about past and future as well. We should not remain with superficiality, but we also cannot live entirely in the inner point in the soul. We are made up of both layers of our soul, and we also have lower parts to our existence, such as our nefesh habehaimis, as well as the actual physical body that our soul is clothed by.

But we must definitely recognize that we all have these layers to our existence. If we don’t access the power to be connected to “havayah”, it’s not possible for a person to ever be someiach b’chelko. And if a person only dwells in someiach b’chelko, he will have no aspirations to grow, and he will have no regret over the past.

The ideal way to live is to connect the past and future with the present. We need to have aspirations, and we need to regret the past. But at certain times, we need to enter the inner point in our soul, which focuses solely on the present (of the reality of Hashem) and forgets momentarily about the past or future. There, a person connects totally with the ultimate present moment – the reality of Hashem’s existence.

It is impossible to give exact instructions on how to balance our power to access the deep present moment together with how much we need to think about past or future, but this is the basic outline of the concept.

The Inner Point of Perfection In The Soul

This doesn’t seem logical. How is it possible for a person to ever come to feel that all is well in the present moment? Don’t we see a world full of deficiencies, (as we declare in Borei Nefashos)?

But all the deficiencies are only viewed through the outer layers of our soul. In the inner recesses of our soul, where it can be felt that “The rock of my heart and portion is G-d” – the essence of every Jew’s heart can feel Hashem – there, a person can feel a perfected reality, for Hashem is perfect. When a person connects his soul with that place of perfection, it can be said of him that he’s living in a perfect world, if we could conceptualize that somehow.

True, there are many deficiencies that exist. That’s what we see on the external layer of reality. But through the inner rooms of our heart, we can access a view in which everything is perfect. They are two different viewpoints in our soul.

Changing The Orientation

Now we can understand the following.

A child only lives in the present, and he never thinks about past or future, but this is only because he’s immature. As a person matures and he begins to think about past and future, he has an avodah to know when he should reflect about the past, when he should think about present, and when he should think about future. Generally, it is the ‘imagination’ when one thinks about past or future, as Rav Dessler writes. A person has to learn how to focus on the present.

To illustrate, the Vilna Gaon wrote that when a person learns Gemara, he should be entirely focused on the current page of Gemara he is learning, and he should not think about anything else, not past and not future. This is how a person can begin to experience the present moment and take his mind off thinking about either past or future.

The simple understanding is that when a person is thinking about either past or future, he’s being a scatterbrain. But the deeper reason why it is a problem is because the future is hidden from us, and the past, which used to be revealed to us, is also now hidden from us. Only the present moment is what is fully revealed to us.

Exile and Redemption of the Soul

The Maharal says that the word “galus” (exile) is from the word “giluy” (redemption), because galus (exile) is essentially a ‘galus’ (exile) of the ‘giluy’ (redemption).

When a person only thinks about either past or future and he never lives the present, he’s living the galus (exile) of the giluy (redemption). The past isn’t here anymore, the future isn’t here yet - so to dwell entirely on either past or future is like an exile of our soul. Our soul is in ‘exile’ when all we think about is past or future, which are both concealed from us.

A child, who lives in katnus (immaturity), is in a total ‘exile’ of the soul. When a person gets older and he thinks about past present and future, his soul is also in ‘exile’, because the giluy (revelation) of the present moment is being concealed from him, since he is always thinking about either past or future.

But when a person is involved and concentrated on the present moment, and he takes his mind off past and future, this is the depth of what is written, “My soul is close to her redemption” – it is a way to leave the ‘exile’ of the soul.

The more a person purifies his existence, he merits this inner ‘redemption’ in his own soul, and he’s less involved with past and future, and instead, he experiences the present moment. He can slowly enter more and more into the giluy (revelation)of the present moment – a world of geulah\redemption.

“Havayah” – The Ultimate Reality

Experiencing the full meaning of the present moment is to live the revelation of reality – and not a concealed reality. The more a person connects to the present and the less he is involved with past or future, his soul is connected to revelation, and he has the key to entering the higher meaning of reality, which is “havayah” – the existence of Hashem.

At first, a person won’t be able to enter “havayah” right away. But the more a person experiences the present, the closer he is to “havayah”; by contrast, the more a person is involved with either past or future, the further he is from “havayah”, and all he will feel is that Hashem is just a “Keil Mistater”, a “hidden G-d”….

Experiencing Revelation In Torah Study

All of us, who exert ourselves in Torah study (some more and some less) have experienced moments of revelation. The Torah is called “sasrin v’galya”, “concealed and revealed”. At the beginning of learning a sugya, there is much concealment; when we finish the sugya, we experience a degree of revelation. When we exert ourselves in learning, we remove the Torah from its exile, to a certain extent, and we reveal it to its redemption.

People have been learning Torah their whole life, but they never experience some feeling of redemption when they learn, because they aren’t aware that at first it is supposed to feel concealed and at the end it becomes revealed. But when a person is aware that Torah is “sasrin v’galya”, he exerts himself as he’s learning and when he gets to the end of the sugya, he can feel a degree of revelation and redemption. He can feel, to a certain extent, that he has gone from a state of exile to redemption.

The more a person exerts himself in Torah in a way that he removes the concealment from the sugya and reveals it, he keeps experiencing a state of redemption from his exile, all the time. He keeps seeing revelation upon revelation.

This can only happen with exertion in learning, day and night, and to only think about the present moment, and not to think at all about past and present. This connects a person with revelation, and then the person will have the key to entering the recognition of Hashem’s existence, “havayah” - which is the Ultimate Reality.

The inner and true way to live life, when learning Torah, is to keep clarifying what you learn; to bring the matters of the sugya out of their concealment and reveal them.

When people think all the time about either past or future, they are immersing themselves in hidden things which cannot be revealed. There are people who learn hidden matters of Torah all the time, but the purer way to learn Torah is to be involved all the time with ‘revelation’ of Torah, not to always be immersed in ‘hidden’ matters of Torah.

A person who spends all his time learning hidden matters of Torah is involving himself with a level that is beyond him, and he’s involved all the time with concealment; a concealment within a concealment. His soul is in exile.

In Conclusion

Hashem builds Yerushalayim in the present. We can experience the rebuilding of Yerushalayim in the present when we experience the “havayah” of the present moment: a person has to strive to live in “a clear world”, to always be involved with the present, to bring all that is concealed, into its revelation.

Thus, if someone really mourns Yerushalayim properly, that means he wants the revelation of Yerushalayim, and such a person will indeed merit the revelation of Yerushalayim, because he is in touch with havayah; for he yearns that all concealment turn into revelation. And the more a person is in touch with havayah, he can eventually come to the absolute havayah, which is to experience the existence of Hashem, fully revealed in front of him, in complete d’veykus with Him.